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Source: Fair Go -
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Paul Smith and his 17 year old Anglo-Arabian horse Sheriffe competed in endurance racing - the horse world equivalent of running a marathon. But Sheriffe's racing dreams were cut short two years ago when he was found dead in his grazing paddock. Sheriffe touched the wire fence and was electrocuted.
Paul believes Sheriffe's death was preventable and that North Shore City Council should take overall responsibility.
North Shore City Council bought the piece of land back in December 2007, with plans of turning it into a reserve. TBS Farnsworth were contracted to demolish the disused house on the property and electricity company Vector were employed to disconnect the power to the underground lines to make the site safe for demolition.
Vector says it wasn't asked/ instructed to turn off the overhead lines that came from the road.
Those lines were the responsibility of the landowner, the North Shore City Council.
Vector's ruled out storm damage, or act of God, and believes one of the power poles on the property was extensively damaged - most likely during the demolition of the house.
However it came down, the fallen line turned the whole fence live and went undetected for months until after Sheriffe's death in April 2008 - four months after the demolition.
Demolition contractors TBS Farnsworth say they did the job
without any incident and accept no responsibility for Sheriffe's
death.
North Shore City Council also won't accept responsibility for the
death of Paul Smith's horse. They've turned down answering
Fair Go's questions and say a disputes tribunal hearing is the
appropriate venue to resolve this dispute.
